It's the gap between the first and second bullets that Tim Westwood remembers most clearly. The first had blasted through the DJ's car window and ripped through his arm; the gunman, riding pillion on a motorcycle and armed with an automatic pistol, was readying himself for a second shot. Inside his Range Rover, Westwood felt 'trapped, helpless', though his mind was working overtime: 'The pause seemed to last forever while they aimed that second shot...'

It was a Sunday evening, last July, close on 8.30pm. Moments earlier, Westwood and his passengers - members of his 'street team', as he calls them, four young men plus his female producer - had been driving along Kennington Park Road, in south London. They were in high spirits, horsing around, looking forward to an after-show party.

Westwood, Europe's most influential hip hop DJ, had spent the afternoon performing at the unlikely-sounding Lambeth Country Show, a vestige of quieter times, held in Brixton's Brockwell Park. In the past, the highlight of the annual event had been the tractor race, but this year Westwood fronted a Radio 1 show, 'reaching out into the community'. The show had been 'hot', to borrow Westwood's seal of approval.

Westwood had suffered problems before in this stretch of south London. In the summer of 1998 a gang led by a man believed to be Keith Andy Balfour, a music promoter and local hard man, had attacked Westwood in Streatham; Westwood's refusal to pay protection money was reckoned to be a possible motive. (In an unrelated incident, Balfour was shot dead in Brockley, in April this year.)

However, the performance in Brockwell Park had passed without undue incident, and the team of young men, some still in their late teens - 'Glen, Taz, Courtney, Junior', Westwood lists - was winding down in the back of the Range Rover. Alongside Westwood was the 25-year-old woman who produces his shows; she no longer likes to see her name in print, says Westwood, because she is still 'traumatised' by what happened. 'These were not warning shots,' he says. 'These people were trying to kill me.'

We're sitting in a private members club in central London. Westwood, speaking for the first time since the shooting, offers up a mix of emotion and calm, precise narrative detail.

One moment, he is bidding me to look at his scars. 'The shit went in there, and the shit came out here,' he says, hoisting up his T-shirt and pointing to two circles of pale, purple tissue on his upper arm, each the size of a 10-pence piece. His arm had risen in protection. 'The bullet missed my heart by an inch,' he says. The next moment, Westwood is coolly detailing the second bullet's flight path. It 'went through the car, went through the back of my seat, missed my spine by an inch, and smashed Glen's knee up'.

The two attackers, wearing multicoloured helmets, escaped, their motorcycle weaving away in the direction of Elephant and Castle. Though two men were later arrested, no charges have followed; the official word from Clapham police station is that inquiries are still 'ongoing'. Immediately after the shooting, some reports speculated that Westwood was not the target, but one of his companions. Westwood has no doubts. 'It was my window that got blasted.' The police are with him on this. 'All evidence suggests Tim Westwood was the target,' an officer confirmed this week.

Neither party will be drawn on possible motives, but Westwood lets slip that both have a good idea who the attackers were; it remains a question of proof. He no longer benefits from the police guard that was stationed in the hospital immediately after the attack, but does not feel overly anxious. 'I believe whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger,' he says, adding with a touch of bravado: 'I'm still driving the same car around with the bullet holes in it.'

Westwood, very tall, slim, is dressed in the hip hop 'uniform': baggy jeans, baggy T-shirt, baggy sweat shirt. Marketers might call his style 'middle youth', the style of the mature man (Westwood is in his early forties though he might sometimes imply otherwise) who prefers the language and dress of teenagers.

Or, specifically, the style of black teenagers, as was pointed out repeatedly in profiles of Westwood that followed the shooting, the story moving swiftly from the news to comment and analysis pages. 'I had expected a little something in the south London press,' he says. (He takes pride, he adds, in not normally dealing with the press, in not giving interviews, using, as promotional tools, his alternative 'street' network, his team of young men spreading the word in barbers and clothes shops, even nail shops - 'very useful', apparently.)

Westwood was 'hot' not only because hip hop and violence is always a 'good' story, but because Westwood struck a chord in a cultural Britain just learning to catch up with itself. 'What's a nice white middle-class boy doing pretending to be black?' ran the repeated, loaded question, an 'accusation' long levelled at Westwood because of his penchant for patois rap speak. To listen to his Radio 1 shows, broadcast late on Friday and Saturday, or to speak to him in the flesh, is to be met with a lexicon of 'fresh' and 'chill', of 'real, uncut flava' and 'keeping it real'. Ali G, the spoof interviewer from Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show is based, in part, on Westwood.

Admittedly, the material was rich, and the contrasts just too inviting. Westwood was born in the unmean streets of Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a clergyman, the late Bill Westwood, who went on to become the Bishop of Peterborough, acquaintance of Lady Thatcher and sometime contributor to 'Thought For The Day' on Radio 4's Today programme. But, underlying the popular take on Westwood was the notion that he was somehow fake - white, middle-class, middle-aged, when hip hop 'should' be black, working-class, young.

The reaction offered a new twist on the British obsession with background and class, but often revealed more about the writer than Westwood Jr. (As a child, we learned from a rival Sunday, he was called Timothy and went to church!) Why not view as progress the son of an Anglican conservative making his way immersed in, and serving, multicultural Britain?

On Saturday, on Radio 1, broadcasting into the early hours, he attracts 700,000 listeners, and has increased his audience by 100 per cent in the past year. The BBC rightly considers him a public service triumph, bringing in, says a spokesman, many people who would not otherwise bother with the Corporation, especially a large percentage of the young, urban black population, not hugely interested in the 'old' Radio 1.

Talking about his father is tender territory for Westwood. Bill Westwood died recently. The day before we meet, the son had interred his father's ashes. Says Westwood: 'I think my father was proud of me... The bullet did not slow me down but nothing prepares you for the death of your father.' He mentions an abiding link: 'I have a faith, a strong belief in God. That somebody drove up at point blank range and blasted us... I definitely thank God that we survived.'

Less understandably, Westwood seems reluctant to discuss his early years. It's as if he is defensive about not having emerged from the womb as a fully formed hip hop kid, as if the comfort of his background, the stint at public school (in Norwich) will be thrown back in his face. Push him for reminiscences from childhood, and he resists, preferring the autobiography to begin when he was a 'kid' (already well into his twenties) in the burgeoning London club scene of the Eighties.

'I just don't understand why he's so defensive about his background,' says one black music journalist. 'Nobody cares; nobody questions his knowledge and commitment.' Westwood, it's true, has all the necessary bona fides to elicit that hip hop essential, respect.

By 1982, he had a slot on the pirate station, LWR; moved later to Kiss FM, where he had a stake in the company, and then on to the commercial station Capital. Matthew Bannister, now chief executive of BBC Production, signed him for Radio 1 five years ago. Westwood is the 'epitome of the public service broadcaster,' according to Bannister. 'He's not above [listeners] or patronising to them'. Bannister assured Westwood that the DJ as people's friend had found the people's outlet.

Far from coming across as a cynical opportunist, there's something of the innocent abroad about Westwood, the music enthusiast who rents four lock-up garages across London simply for his records, and still the excess runs all over his flat. He has no girlfriend (there'd be no room for her in his flat), but would like children. 'But while there's no question about his knowledge,' continues the black journalist, 'what people object to is that he some times oversteps the mark with the persona, acting in a way he perceives to be a "black" way. It's just embarrassing, sending out "shouts" to people in prison, and talking about everybody being involved in same struggle.'

Westwood bristles at the mention of his delivery. For him, it's part of the deal. 'I am white and that's what I am. It's not part of a performance. This is who I am. This is how I speak.' He could be an actor who has played a part for so long that he has forgotten it's a role. He tells a story, not quite the complement to his own tale that he thinks it is: 'I've got black friends who are very successful in the City. They don't go out to work wearing baggy jeans, throwing high fives to the MD. They have to be appropriate to the "scene" they are in. Me, I have to keep it real.'

This is the point. Hip hop is obsessed with authenticity; you're nothing if you're not the 'real deal' or 'down' with the street. (Incidentally, on the jargon front, is it not irrelevant whether the speaker is black or white? It quickly wears thin either way.) Gangsta rap especially leans heavily on its narratives of violence, and it normally helps sales if the performer reminds the listener that he is acquainted with the mean streets (or at least pretends to be). As the key British purveyor of hip hop, Westwood buys into such notions of mean-street authenticity. It should come as no surprise, then, that these much-invoked mean streets should occasionally make their presence felt.

Consider the case of the late American rap star Tupac Shakur, who transformed himself from mild-mannered graduate of the Baltimore School for Arts to hard-man performer for the purposes of selling records. In Have Gun Will Travel, a recently published book detailing how real gangsterism came to dominate the multi-million dollar gangsta-rap industry, writer Ronin Ro recounts the ways Shakur got caught up in the real thing. So much so that the rhetoric became horrific reality, and he was murdered (his record sales gaining a huge boost in the process).

Levels of violence in Britain don't yet compare. But increasingly hip hop events have been targeted by gangs running protection rackets, as an Observer investigation detailed earlier this year. One DJ revealed: 'Most of the clubs and a lot of the venues in London are paying protection money. If they don't pay formally, then they are paying way over the odds for their security, which is pretty much the same thing.'

These music-related rackets tend to be run by British-born black gangsters. Last April there was a shoot-out in an east London nightclub, resulting in serious injury to several patrons, while a gun was fired last November at a Snoop Doggy Dogg gig in west London.

Westwood, whose production company, Justice, not only produces his Radio 1 shows but his club and concert appearances too, admits he spends plenty of money on security. But he claims this is mostly to 'protect audiences eager to get in. One guy got on to a roof and fell 30 feet.'

The only time Westwood pauses during our interview is when I float by him the theory that hip hop-related violence stems mostly from promotion and security turf wars. 'It sure can be,' he replies, laconic for once. Coincidentally, I get an almost identically phrased, similarly laconic response from the policeman at Clapham.

Westwood, insiders agree, is the good guy. When he promotes events, through Justice, they tend to be classy and good value. He has the power to attract top American rappers, and persuade the likes of Lil' Kim or Busta Rhymes to perform at, say, the Temple in Tottenham for £5. ('Free for the ladies,' he qualifies, 'so that's £2.50 average.') Though with 4,000 in attendance, it's still a hefty take. Ask him what he's most proud of, and he turns into Lord Reith - though with an admittedly updated lexicon. 'It's reaching out, showing people on the street what's good, giving them good stuff at limited cost. Flava finds flava.' (Translation: the 'good/talented find each other'.)

But the insiders also add that Westwood's extensive interests as the most powerful player in British hip hop make him a key target for protection rackets, for extortion. Also, his shows' ability to make careers results in resentment from those left out. 'In some ways, there's little he can do,' says one music industry executive. 'His success alone will make people want to have a pop.' Yes, literally as well as figuratively, he confirms.

I ask Westwood about security, in the wake of the shooting. Yes, he will have - as before - protection at events, out at clubs; but not routinely. Today, unless there are people waiting outside, or hiding in the corners of the club, he is on his own.

Ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, and he says still 'involved in the scene'; not DJ-ing at the age of 60, but nurturing others. A sort of protective grand-daddy for the 'upcoming kids from the street'. He tells me about these vans he has, the Street Team vans, Westwood-mobiles, which drive the team around town spreading the word, in barber's shops and clothes shops. They come complete with a TV, video, Sony Playstation.

The Street Vans work as a vehicle of 'empowerment' for new talent, bringing them to Westwood's attention. When he talks about the values he encourages in those he takes on board, he sounds like a highly sober CEO: 'Maybe these kids haven't had jobs before, you have to make sure they are prompt, focused, that they think of the future.'

As for Westwood, he should worry less about the past. It's OK, you feel like telling him, it's not a hanging offence to grow up comfortable, a vicar's son. He should heed the line from a hip hop great, American performer Rakim: 'It ain't where you're from, it's where you're at.'